The rise of online travel platforms has heightened expectations for transparent, user-friendly interfaces and quick, reliable booking processes. Customers want planning and booking a holiday to be easy and personalised, regardless of whether they are booking online, over the phone or in a retail store.
Additionally, there is an increasing focus on sustainable and responsible tourism practices, reflecting a broader trend in consumer expectations.
Today’s consumers look for convenience, personalisation, and ethical behaviour from companies, pushing businesses to adapt and meet these evolving standards.
71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalised interaction, with 76% getting frustrated when this doesn’t happen.
How can retail travel agents keep up with these changing customer expectations?
95% of both B2C and B2B executives say they believe their customers are changing faster than they can change their businesses.
Travel agents are trusted advisors, always there, providing expert guidance and making personalised recommendations based on each customer’s unique preferences and, in an ever-changing world, providing the peace of mind talking to a human provides. However, without the right technology to support them, travel agents will struggle to meet these customer demands.
Imagine a world where your travel agents have instant access to comprehensive customer profiles, complete with preferences, travel history, and contact information, all while managing bookings effortlessly….
Introducing AGENT
The retail travel industry has been undergoing a profound transformation in recent years, with evolving customer expectations and the need for streamlined operations. Our AGENT platform has been meticulously developed to address these challenges and drive innovation within the sector.
On Tuesday 7th November, over 40 industry professionals from travel agencies, consortia and the media joined at the Sunborn Luxury Yacht Hotel for the official launch of AGENT to see first-hand how this groundbreaking technology can transform both the agent and the customer experience.
David Speakman, keynote speaker and Inspiretec investor
The heart of any retail travel agency is its booking system, and AGENT takes this to the next level. With a user-friendly interface for complete booking management and a self-service portal for your customers, your agents will be able to manage bookings, reconcile individual booking payments and manage trips faster and more accurately than ever before.
Simon Powell, Inspiretec, CEO said: “We had a great attendance at our official AGENT launch on the Sunborn and are very pleased to be back in the agency management system side.
“AGENT is our new retail travel platform designed to empower the agent, bringing together our best-of-breed CRM, which is all around the client, with the transactional element, which is all around the agent booking process.
“What makes our platform different, and why I think it will be a game changer for the travel agent sector is our suite of Inspiretec modules, including our self-service customer portal and content-rich quote builder, Canvas. All these modules work seamlessly with AGENT providing an end-to-end agency management system.”
Personalising the customer experience
71% of B2C customers expect companies to be well-informed about their personal information during a service interaction.
The retail travel industry thrives on personalisation and impeccable customer service and the importance of an effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system cannot be overstated. Travel agencies have long been seeking a way to seamlessly integrate this essential tool with their booking systems, and AGENT does just that.
When a customer enters a branch or calls up, that agent can see their average spend, when and where they usually travel, when they last booked and much more, in an instant. All these insights are easily accessible in AGENT with our built-in travel CRM, allowing your agents to deliver a highly personalised experience consistently.
AGENT offers a fully branded self-service portal allowing customers to take control of their information effortlessly. By empowering customers to update their own APIS information, manage their travel documentation, share their preferences and view their quotes and bookings you can save valuable time allowing your agents to focus on adding value to the customer experience.
Streamlining your travel agency operations
Having worked with hundreds of travel brands we know travel agents often contend with numerous manual processes that can be time-consuming and intricate. In the absence of seamless integrations, agents find themselves entering the same data across different systems which easily leads to inefficiencies and increased likelihood of inaccuracies.
AGENT reduces the need for rekeying and minimises errors with our easy-to-use booking import functionality. Save valuable time by importing bookings from Jet2Holidays, easyJet holidays, Gold Medal, TUI and many other suppliers.
How long do your agents spend creating a quote? It’s not uncommon for agents to take hours on a single quote using MS Word to add imagery and unique text, trying to get that personalised touch. With AGENT and our Canvas module, your agents can create beautiful quotes in minutes using drag-and-drop functionality and AI-powered features for destinational content. If you could speed up your enquiry-to-quote-to-book time, think how much time this would save each agent each day, week, or year!
System downtime is a concern for any travel agency, but our AGENT platform has a 99.9% uptime, this means agents don’t have to work overtime to process a booking when their system is back up and running. With AGENT you can be confident your travel agents can access the information whenever and wherever they need to.
Accurately managing commissions by agent is essential for any travel agency. AGENT provides precise control over commission targets for individual travel agents. This level of flexibility allows you to align commission structures with each agent’s performance, specialisation, and contribution to the business. It’s a strategic game-changer that enables you to reward top-performing agents generously while providing an incentive for others to excel.
We believe 2024 is the year of the travel agent. Consumers expect highly personalised and individualised service and want the impartiality and integrity that only agents can provide, but agents need the right tools to be able to meet these growing expectations, and that is what AGENT offers.
Find out more about AGENT and book a demo.
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